How the Red Sox set themselves up to win the scouting war

The Red Sox will wake up on Monday in first place in the AL East for the 56th day in 2013. One of the biggest reasons why has been their advance preparation. In a series over the next three days,...

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By
TIM BRITTON
Posted Jun. 9, 2013 @ 11:49 am

The Red Sox will wake up Monday in first place in the AL East for the 56th day in 2013. One of the biggest reasons why has been their advance preparation. In a series over the next three days, we’ll examine how the Red Sox find advantages before a series even begins, how that process has changed over the past 15 years and how it translates to tangible results on the field.

BOSTON — John Farrell was hired as Boston’s manager on Oct. 23 — nearly six weeks earlier in the offseason than his predecessor Bobby Valentine had been tabbed a year prior.

That afforded Farrell the luxury of not only picking his own coaching staff, but of having the best candidates still available. (Valentine had final say on coaching decisions, but he didn’t have a lot of options come December.)

Once Farrell was hired, he and general manager Ben Cherington went looking for the best possible coaching staff. And one of the main priorities was constructing a staff passionate about preparation.

“We want to know that there’s a real interest in preparation, a real interest in finding advantages for our players,” general manager Ben Cherington said. “When you have a number of people that are really interested in and passionate about it, you have a better chance when the team hits the field at 7 o’clock.”

“It was one of the main criteria in the interview process — what their experience with [advance information] has been, how they envisioned it being disseminated to the group, things that would go into the accumulation and gathering of the information,” added Farrell.

The Red Sox have built a staff with a heavy dose of experience, especially in the American League East. Third-base coach Brian Butterfield has spent 16 of the last 20 years working in the division with the Yankees, Blue Jays and Red Sox, and thus knows as much as anybody about players in the division. Farrell’s been in the division since 2007, bench coach Torey Lovullo since 2011. Prior to his role as bullpen coach, Dana LeVangie served as the team’s advance scout for seven years. He knows the tendencies of opposing players league-wide.

Steve Langone replaced LeVangie as the advance scout after working under him for three years in the department.

If there’s one person who personifies Boston’s commitment to advance scouting, it’s the tireless Butterfield. Lovullo called him “the main artery in what we’re trying to accomplish.” The maestro behind all of Boston’s infield shifting, Butterfield’s at the ballpark early every day to look at video, leaving barely enough time for a cup of coffee with his wife.

“In 17 years of professional ball, I’ve had breakfast with my wife maybe five times,” he said. “Preparation is part of my gig. I can sleep at the end of the season.”

Boston’s last hire to the coaching staff was another critical one. Shifting LeVangie from advance scout to bullpen coach at the beginning of spring training gave the team another experienced voice in the room when going over Langone’s advance reports.

“He may not be the one out on the road looking at the next team, but he’s a part of that preparation,” said Cherington. “He can use that experience he’s had to help that filtering process. ‘OK, we’ve got this, and this is all good, but it’s really this that we need.’”

“He’s relentless,” Butterfield said. “I’m glad he’s on my side because he’s going to get after it. He’s going to make us better — not just the players but the rest of the coaches.”

For the Red Sox, the advance process begins with Langone. The former minor-league pitcher will be on the road virtually every day this season, working roughly a week ahead in the Red Sox schedule. He spent last week in Anaheim, for instance, watching the Angels starting pitchers the Sox saw over the weekend at Fenway.

Langone attends games based on the starting pitcher, but he’s looking for much more than that. He’s examining holes in team defense, relievers who are slow to the plate or catchers with bad pop times, who’s stealing bases and when — any weakness in an opponent that the Red Sox can take advantage of.

When he finishes with a team, Langone compiles his in-depth scouting report with notes on every player. For hitters, the report lists strengths and weaknesses, as well as suggestions for how to exploit the latter. The pitcher reports are more general, with information such as a go-to out pitch, or how he pitches ahead versus behind.

Langone’s work is supplemented with video culled by video coordinator Billy Broadbent major-league assistant Brian Abraham. On the first day of a series, the Red Sox hold a conference call with the entire coaching staff and Langone. It typically runs about 40 minutes to an hour, with Langone running through his report, answering any questions and clarifying any confusion.

Once that call ends, the process becomes less formal, as the staff runs through any stray observations it feels could help. Here’s where that experience plays a key role.

“If you have good people watching the games, you’re still going to pick out things that wouldn’t even be included in data necessarily,” said Cherington. “The human eye is still really valuable. The right human eyes watching the game gives you an advantage.”

“It’s everybody using their voice for one ultimate goal, and that’s to win,” said LeVangie. “If you see something, don’t be afraid to say something. But when you say something, just have some meaning behind it and a reason.”

“It’s a lot of conversation, a lot of one-on-one time, a lot of group time, a lot of baseball conversation that we throw at one another,” Lovullo said. “It’s a cumulative effort.”

Cherington illustrates the point with a story.

“You hear the stories about Kirk Gibson’s famous pinch-hit home run, how [Dennis] Eckersley was going to go to a backdoor slider in this situation. It’s a great story, and that very well could have happened,” he said. “More often, the advantages you get come from a group of people and a series of conversations over a period of time where you’re continuing to distill information and pass back and forth: ‘What would you do with this guy?’